“The hell you can. Do you think that I didn’t make plans to make sure you didn’t slip away from me? The only way you’ll get away is when you’re dead.” He grabbed the reconstruction container, took her arm, and pushed her toward the door. “And then Kevin will have you. He’s been waiting for you. He doesn’t like it that you’ve been keeping him from the little girl.”
It wasn’t the first time that Doane had mentioned that ugliness about Kevin trying to get to Bonnie and that Eve’s connection to her was preventing it. True or false, it struck terror in Eve. She might deny Kevin’s existence as an entity to Doane, but she had doubts. If there were special creatures of love like Bonnie on the other side, might there not also be demons? What did Eve know? All she knew was that by some special grace, she had been given the chance to keep her Bonnie with her even after she had passed on, and her daughter must be protected. “Your Kevin will wait a long time,” she said. “Bonnie is stronger than he will ever be.”
He muttered a curse as he slammed the door of the motel behind them. “Get in the car.” He opened the passenger door and shoved her into the vehicle. He cuffed her right wrist to the seat belt. “No screams, or I’ll gag you.”
“That would look very weird to any bystander.”
“Not if I tie you up on the floorboard. You’d be very uncomfortable, I promise you.” He started the Toyota. “Though the drive won’t be as long as I’d like it to be.”
She glanced at the door of the motel as the car pulled out on the road. Doane hadn’t found the clay message.
Safe.
Not safe. That bit of clay could be found by a maid cleaning up the room and tossed out.
It was the best she could do.
She could only trust that Joe and Jane might be close enough on her trail that they would find the motel.
And then they would have to find that message written in clay that she had so carefully hidden, she thought in discouragement. She wasn’t expecting much, was she?
Not expecting, hoping, praying. It was a very slim chance but the only one she had.
“You’re very quiet,” Doane said. “I guess you don’t want to be gagged. I’m glad you’re being smart.”
She would have to be smart, she thought. She could rely only on herself as she had done in the mountains. She glanced around, trying to see some avenue for escape.
They were on the outskirts of Casper, and there were very few buildings around except the motel.
A tire shop directly across the road.
A strip mall a mile distant.
Police? State troopers?
No. None in sight.
Oh, for a Dunkin’ Donuts.
Joe would not be pleased she’d had that thought. That old, stale joke always irritated him when he knew how hard policemen worked.
Forgive me, Joe.
Lord, she missed him.
She leaned back on the seat and closed her eyes for a moment. I’m so tired of this, Joe. I want to see you, touch you. I want this to be over. Let it just be a bad dream.
She opened her eyes to see Doane in the seat next to her, the passing stream of traffic and the knowledge that the nightmare continued. All exactly the same, she thought dully.
No, not quite.
She heard the throb of the rotors of a helicopter in the distance. Then saw the silver blur of metal on the horizon.
But that was the only thing that had changed in that brief moment of poignant wistfulness, and it had nothing to do with wishes coming true.
She had to make her own wishes come true and fight her own nightmares.
She straightened on the seat and turned to Doane. “So what’s the next step? Where are we going now?”
* * *
“CASPER IS ABOUT FIVE MINUTES away,” Catherine said to Zander as she studied the map on her lap. “And that Starlite Motel should be right there.” Her finger tapped a building. “Have the pilot land somewhere nearby but not obvious enough to cause too much attention. Maybe in those hills over there.”
“It’s difficult not having a helicopter landing cause attention,” Zander said dryly.
“That’s why I said to try those hills.”
“Any other orders?” Zander asked silkily.
“No,” she said quietly. “Because you’re obviously the dominant type who objects to not being in charge. I know you’re in charge. I just have a problem with it when I know I’m just as competent as you are.” She took out her phone. “Now I’m going to call the desk at that motel and see if anyone of Doane’s description is registered and in what room. You do whatever you like about the landing. But please remember we’ll need a car to get to the motel once we land.”
He stared at her for a moment and smiled faintly.
“I had Stang arrange for a rental car before we left Denver. The driver is on standby within ten miles of that motel. All I have to do is call and tell him where to pick us up.”
“Very good.” She started to dial.
“I’m glad you approve.”
“I never doubted that you were an expert in practically every way,” she said coolly. “You’d have to be to have survived all these years. I just question your judgment where daughters are concerned. It’s completely—” She broke off as the desk clerk at the motel answered. She immediately got down to business. During the call, she was aware of Zander’s gazing at her curiously, as if she were some strange, rare species. She didn’t care. She was curious about him, too, and he was stranger than she had ever dreamed of being.
“There’s a man of Doane’s description registered in Room 7A,” she said a few minutes later as she hung up. “He’s easy to describe.” She made a face. “All you have to do is say he looks like your best friend or your favorite brother. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the photos of him. Anyone would trust that face.”
“A number of children whom Kevin wanted lured into his web trusted his father enough to let him bring them to him.”
“So I’ve heard. There’s something completely corrupt about deceiving and harming children.” Her lips thinned. “May they both burn in hell.” She glanced challengingly at him. “Or don’t you agree?”
“Oh, I agree. Just because I expect to be sent to the nether regions myself is no reason to group myself with those beasts. There should be some sort of pecking order.” He leaned forward, and told the pilot, “Put down in those hills while I call for the car.” He glanced slyly at Catherine. “That appears to be the best place.”
She nodded. “And it’s very clever of you to realize—” She stopped as Zander’s phone rang.
“Stang,” he said as he accessed. “We’re in Casper, Stang, is there—” He stopped, listening. “No, don’t double-check. Call Venable and tell him to get the state patrol to be on the alert. No action, just surveillance.” He hung up, and said grimly, “The cameras at the tire shop showed a vehicle of that description leaving the motel parking lot and turning north.”
“Damn.” Catherine’s hands clenched. “How long ago?”
“Ten minutes.”
Ten minutes, and they would have been able to catch them at the motel, she thought in frustration. “Can we turn north and try to locate them in the helicopter?”
“We can do it.” He gazed at her coolly. “But the chances are that Doane would notice that kind of search and surveillance. A helicopter zooming down is difficult to mask or hide. Would you want to risk having Doane panic and kill Eve?”
“You know I wouldn’t,” she said between set teeth. “Okay, let the state troopers try to locate them and hope they don’t blow it. What next?”
“There’s the possibility that camera at the tire company didn’t identify the correct car,” he said, as the helicopter started its descent. “We go to the motel, check and see if that room is still occupied.” He smiled faintly. “In which case, I’ll kill Doane, and we’ll avoid a good deal of bother.”
“You can’t kill Doane until we determine if he’s told anyone about where Kevin p
laced those nuclear devices.”
“Can’t?” His brows rose. “You’re sounding amazingly like Venable. I can and will do anything I please. It’s Venable’s job, and now evidently yours, to take care of saving the free world. Doane has been very troublesome to me since the day I killed his son.” He added, “And very troublesome to your friend, Eve, as well. I’d think you’d want me to get rid of him.”
“You’re being simplistic. That’s what I do want, but do you think Eve would want him killed at that cost?”
He didn’t speak for a moment. “No, but when have I ever exhibited any interest in what she feels or thinks? You’re not being reasonable.”
“The hell I’m not. I’m just not being callous.” Her eyes were glaring into his. “And I’m not being hypocritical. I think you’re lying about not caring about Eve. Why don’t you take a long look at yourself and see what you find?”
“And I think you might just be as idealistic and unrealistic as Eve.” He opened the copter door and jumped to the ground the instant it landed. “We’ll have to see who is right, won’t we?” He strode toward the car that was waiting several yards away. “Stop talking, and let’s get moving.”
* * *
“STAND BACK.” ZANDER WAS pressed on one side of the motel door. He took out his gun and fired a bullet to blow the lock. He waited a moment, then kicked the door open with his foot.
“Empty.” Catherine entered the room and glanced around. She had not had great hopes, but she still felt terribly disappointed. No sign of any occupants except those two unmade beds. Eve was not overly neat but she never left an unmade bed. Even if the circumstances were totally bizarre, Catherine could not see her doing it.
“Come on,” Zander said impatiently. “We need to get on the road.”
“You wanted to be sure it was Eve and Doane in that Toyota.” She went over to the beds and jerked the covers off first one bed, then the other. Nothing on the surface of the bottom sheet on the first bed.
On the second bed she thought the condition was the same.
No, not quite the same.
She reached down and picked up a few tiny crumbs from the sheet. “Clay. It was Eve. She was here. And she was trying to tell us she was here.” She headed for the door. “Now we can go. Zander, contact those state troopers and see if they’ve seen them on the road.”
* * *
VENABLE CALLED CATHERINE when they’d been on the road just five minutes. “I’ve had a notification from a state trooper on Highway 25 that they saw a vehicle answering the description pull off the main road onto a side road.”
“What’s on that side road?”
“I’m checking it on the map now. Houses, a trailer camp, a small convenience store … Shit! A small private airport. Get the hell out there!”
“An airport,” Catherine said to Zander as she hung up. “They’re not heading for the state border. They’re heading for an airport. We’ve just got to hope that Doane hasn’t already arranged for his flight and that there will be a delay.”
“You hope. I always operate on the worst-case scenario.” Zander’s foot pressed on the accelerator and the car leaped forward. “And that scenario is that Doane has made contact with Kevin’s old friends, and they sent a plane to pick him up. Tell Venable to scramble some airpower and be ready to try to bring them down.”
She reached for her cell, then stopped. “No.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure how they’d bring them down, dammit. Venable said that Homeland Security was a little too eager about using the drones.”
“He didn’t mention that to me. But that’s no surprise. Venable and I are not always entirely honest with each other.” He increased speed again. He was going close to a hundred miles an hour now. “Then I believe we’d better forget about airpower and get to them before they take off.”
Fast.
Faster.
The hills on either side of them became a green blur.
They’d be lucky if those state troopers they’d put on alert didn’t try to pull them over, Catherine thought.
She glanced at Zander’s face. It was completely intent and resolute. He would not stop regardless of who tried to get in his way. She felt a sudden chill as she realized she was seeing the Zander who had earned a reputation that was feared in every corner of the world.
He was handling the Mercedes like a race car driver. He suddenly made a turn to the left that caused the tires to screech, but he never lost control. “How far?” he bit out.
“Three miles. On your left.”
Dirt bumping and spraying beneath the tires.
Rocky Mountain Airport.
“Just ahead,” she said. “I see a few hangars…” Her excitement was growing. “There’s a Toyota parked before that little terminal building.” She was getting a glimpse of the runway. “And there’s a plane going down the runway!”
Zander was screeching to a stop in front of a chain-link fence. He drew his gun as he jumped out of the car. “Get the numbers on the side of the plane.”
“You’re going to shoot? You don’t even know if it’s them,” Catherine said as she memorized the number.
“I don’t know that it’s not. It won’t hurt to shoot the tires out before they—” He stopped as the Gulfstream left the runway. “Too late.” He put his gun away. “Now we can go inside and see if they were on that Gulfstream or if they’re in that terminal waiting for us.” His lips twisted. “As usual, I’m subscribing to the worst-case scenario.”
And the worst-case scenario proved to be accurate.
Five minutes later, Catherine was on the phone giving the registration numbers that were on the Gulfstream to Venable as they strode out of the terminal building and over to the Toyota Doane had abandoned.
She hung up the phone as Zander bent over the lock of the car. “Venable said that he’ll make every attempt to locate the plane.” She made a face. “And that the chances aren’t even fifty-fifty if they continue to use out-of-the-way airports like this one.”
“It’s a weapon in the arsenal,” he said as he picked the lock and swung open the door of the driver’s seat. “Now let’s see if we can find any other weapons he might have left in here.”
“I’m surprised you picked the lock. I would have thought you’d shoot the damn thing off. You seem to be so fond of using your gun.”
“Only if I’m in a hurry. We have more time now.” He was rifling through the glove box. “We can start using more mundane methods.”
She raised her eyes to the sky.
The disappointment was hitting home with wrenching force as she realized how close they’d come to Eve only to lose her.
Zander said they had more time now, but she wasn’t so sure.
Doane was moving fast, and it appeared he had help.
How much time did Eve have left?
CHAPTER
8
Muncie, Indiana
Muncie Airport Terminal
“MS. WEBER?” JANE SAID when Harriet Weber answered her call. “This is Jane MacGuire. You don’t know me, but it’s essential that I talk to you. If I come to the school where you’re teaching, could you spare a few minutes?”
“I’m very busy Ms. MacGuire.” Harriet’s voice was crisp. “I have students who need me. Perhaps we could make an appointment for next week.”
“I need to talk to you right away. I don’t want to disturb you in any way, but I have to ask you a few questions.” She paused. “It concerns your ex-husband and your son.”
Silence. “You’ve got the wrong person. I’m a widow.”
“Your ex-husband’s name was James Relling. When he was placed under federal protection, his name was changed to James Doane.”
Another silence. “Are you a reporter?”
“No.” She paused. “I wonder if you’ve been informed that your ex-husband was recently killed in an explosion?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “Yes, that CIA agent Venable called m
e and told me that James and some woman were blown up in a town in Colorado. I told him I didn’t care, that I’d put all that behind me.”
“I do care,” Jane said. “I couldn’t care more. That woman was Eve Duncan, who adopted me when I was ten years old, and he was responsible for her death. Perhaps you saw the media coverage?”
“No, I don’t know anything about her or what happened. I didn’t want to know. I told Venable that James was a stranger to me now, and I didn’t want to hear anything about what kind of terrible things he was doing.” She added harshly, “Is that why you came? You want to heap blame on me because of what he did to that Eve Duncan? Well, it’s not my fault. Venable was supposed to watch him and keep him from doing anything bad. I’ve had nothing to do with James for years.”
“I have no intention of blaming you for anything. I don’t want to cause you any trouble. Just answer a few questions, and I promise I’ll go away and not bother you again.”
“Why won’t you leave me alone?” she said angrily. “I told you, that was another life.”
And Jane was feeling guilty at insisting. But not guilty enough to stop. Every avenue had to be explored with Eve in danger. “Just a few questions.”
Harriet Weber was silent, and Jane could sense the waves of resentment in that silence. “Very well,” she said shortly. “I’ll meet you in the stands at the athletic field behind the school. One hour.” She hung up.
Jane made a face. “She’s not pleased.” She turned to Trevor and Caleb, who had been listening on speaker. “And who can blame her? She worked hard to have a second chance, and she thinks I might blow it for her. I’ll be as glad as she is when this is over.”
Caleb smiled. “But not if you can squeeze something of value out of her. I take it that we’re not invited to go along?”
She shook her head. “All she’d need to send her running for the hills is to see more than one person heading toward her. You’re both high-impact. I sent Margaret to rent a car, and she can drive me, but I’m not letting her come to the meeting either.” She got to her feet and started for the car-rental area. “I have to go down and sign for the car. Margaret’s not old enough. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”